Linguistic Pet Peeves

I'm sometimes bothered by the misuse of the words 'up' and 'down' when used to indicate direction. If you find yourself in Miami, you would not drive down to New York, you would instead drive up. 'Up' should be used for north and 'down' for south. I believe the correct word is 'over' for east or west.Here are some others I hear so frequently that I sometimes make these mistakes myself:Let's bring Junior with us.I'm not as knowledgeable as Rrhain so I can't cite you the exact rule, but in this case 'bring' is used where 'take' should be.Where are you at?Grrrrrrrrr!!!She's older than me.Instead of 'me' you should use 'I'. In order to keep from sounding pedantic you can add the word 'am', as in "She's older than I am".I believe some credit is owed to Wal*Mart for helping to teach the community the correct form "May I help you?". I don't often go shopping, but when I do I've noticed that I'm more likely to hear that phrase than I am to hear "Can I help you?", which was much more common a few years ago. I think this is because Wal*Mart has the correct form emblazoned on its employees' uniforms.On the downside (isn't there always a downside where Wal*Mart is concerned?) they contribute to the misuse of 'less' and 'fewer' by posting signs at cash registers reading "10 items or less".

berberry writes:

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Here are some others I hear so frequently that I sometimes make these mistakes myself:

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Let's bring Junior with us.

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I'm not as knowledgeable as Rrhain so I can't cite you the exact rule, but in this case 'bring' is used where 'take' should be.

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What's wrong with using bring? If you are conveying, leading, carrying, or causing Junior to come along with you, is that not "bringing" him?Now, some might say you would "take" Junior because you are going away from home. But if you go to a party, you say, "I will bring the cole slaw." That's because the point of reference is the party and things are going to it, thus things are "brought."That same perception applies to Junior. Is the idea that you are going away from home or to the destination? If, when you get there, you wonder how Junior got there, you'd say, "His parents brought him along," rather than, "His parents took him with them." That last would explain how he left, not how he arrived.So whether "bring" or "take" is right in this instance is dependent upon the point of view. Are you going away or going toward?

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

I don't agree. 'Ten dollars' is a measure of the more or less continuous quantity 'price'. 'Five miles', likewise, is a measure of the continuous quantity 'distance'. If people say "It's less than five miles from A to B", then they don't necessarily mean that it's exactly four, three, two, one or zero miles. They are not talking about numbers of miles, they are talking about distance, the magnitude of which is expressed in terms of miles. In short, they mean something like "It's about 4.95 miles".

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"It's amazing what you can learn from DNA." - Desdamona.

Using the word "of" instead of "have."He should of said. Wrong
He should have said. RightMost people say should've when they speak, which sounds like "should of."

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A gentle answer turns away wrath, But a harsh word stirs up anger.

But you get closer to the centre of the earth as you travel north, so going north should be down...

Actually, I believe "gadzooks" comes from "God's Hooks" refering to the nails that help Christ to the cross.

You guys have way too much time on your hands.

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He's not dead. He's electroencephalographically challenged.

Yes, I did. The funny thing about that list is that it doesn't include any mention of a purported "emphatic mood." Yes. Four of them: declarative, imperative, conditional, and subjunctive. Verb negation in English is not a function of mood; it's a function of the adverb "not." There are only four main verb moods in English.I don't see any reason to continue discussing the subjunctive mood, as we've both agreed that it doesn't apply here, so I'm going to skip over your remarks on that subject. So, emphatic is a tense? Or is it a mood? Oh, I guess it's a tense after all.I'll agree that this is emphatic tense. That was my second thought, but I couldn't find support for it anywhere. You seem to have done so.This message has been edited by crashfrog, 10-25-2004 03:37 PM

Parasomnium responds to me:

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Nope..."fewer than ten dollars" and "fewer than five miles." Those things are plural and require the use of "fewer." I agree that quite a lot of people use "less," but they're wrong. Everything in that utterance is plural, so you need to use "fewer."

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I don't agree. 'Ten dollars' is a measure of the more or less continuous quantity 'price'.

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Then we are apparently talking about different things. "Price" is a noun and "ten dollars" would then be describing the "price." Thus, you would say "Its price is less than 10 dollars."I, on the other hand, was thinking about the actual dollars themselves as in, "I have fewer than 10 dollars in my wallet."

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they don't necessarily mean that it's exactly four, three, two, one or zero miles.

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That's irrelevant. The question, as you pointed out, is what the thing being discussed is. Is the "less/fewer than number plural-noun" referring to the plural-noun or is it referring to another, singular noun that the plural-noun is being used to describe (thus making it a predicate adjective?)

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

crashfrog responds to me:

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Weren't you at the Wikipedia site? Didn't you see the huge list of moods?

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Yes, I did. The funny thing about that list is that it doesn't include any mention of a purported "emphatic mood."

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So if Wikipedia doesn't say it, it doesn't exist? Come on now, crash.

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So, emphatic is a tense?

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Or is it a mood?

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Oh, so now you're going to be picky. Wikipedia doesn't seem to recognize the existence of an "emphatic tense," so I guess it doesn't exist, either.After all, in other languages with more inflected conjugations, the subjunctive is a full-fledged "tense." And yet, it's only a "mood" in English. If I recall correctly, that's partly because English simply does not inflect verbs nearly as much as other languages. There is an alteration in the rules of how the verb is spelled, but it isn't like you have a new ending.I have heard some people call it "emphatic mood," but I originally learned it as "tense."You will note, after all, that one of the links I provided calls it the "emphatic mood."Here's another one: EnglishOnce again, it's eighth grade this seems to come up in and now we've got yet another term: "Form." I originally learned that the progressive was a tense, but it seems that's up for grabs, too.Suffice to say, crash, that there is some discussion as to what, exactly, the emphatic is in English. It is there, but whether or not it is a full-fledged tense or is merely a mood kinda depends upon where you draw the line between tenses and moods. And since English only has four inflections of a verb (in which two are identical for regular verbs), it is very difficult to say where that line ought to be drawn.I know some people who claim that there is no "future tense" in English precisely because there is no future inflection of the verb. The use of an auxiliary makes it less than a tense. You can certainly talk about the future, but they don't consider it a tense. Since the emphatic (and the conditional...which I was originally taught was a "tense" and not a "mood") requires the use of auxiliary verbs ("do" for emphatic, "may/might" for conditional), then they aren't true tenses.I still remember that endless list of auxiliaries from eighth grade:have, has, had, am, is, are, was and were, be, being, been, do, does, did, may, might, must, can, could, shall, should, will, would.And "ought" ought to be in there, but it wasn't.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Sometimes a rule is its own exception, Rrhain. I dare you to go to a florist and ask them for a nice bunch of flowers for "fewer than ten dollars". Let the flowers be a consolation for the blank stares.[Edited to change "it's" to "its", so as not to detract from the point made.]This message has been edited by Parasomnium, 10-27-2004 09:36 AM

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"It's amazing what you can learn from DNA." - Desdamona.

Sometimes a rule is (it's) own exception, Rrhain. Woohoo, Para, sticking your neck out there,'specially in a Pet Peeves thread. :-)Edited to escape a nooseThis message has been edited by Nighttrain, 10-27-2004 09:10 AMThis message has been edited by Nighttrain, 10-27-2004 09:12 AMThis message has been edited by Nighttrain, 10-27-2004 09:14 AM

Well spotted, nighttrain. Pity you didn't document you own edits, because now we are kept in the dark about the reasons for a noose with your name on it.

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"It's amazing what you can learn from DNA." - Desdamona.

Clumsy passive-voice construction, there, Para. Don't you know nothing?regards,
Esteban Hambre

Rather, if I can't find a source for it, I need more than your say so.And if you're going to quote a Wikipedia list to support your point, shouldn't the list actually contain what you say it contains? Just a thought. Fair enough. You didn't really portray that level of uncertainty in your post, however.I'm content with the ambiguity. Grammars are always descriptive, not perscriptive. "Moods" and "tenses" don't really exist; they're just models we use to describe phenomena in language.